Mayor Bloomberg offered a sweeping plan yesterday to reform the MTA and speed commuting citywide — including eliminating the $2.25 fare on Midtown crosstown buses.
Ticking off 33 new mass-transit proposals in an election year, Bloomberg took direct aim at the MTA as an unwieldy and unchanging bureaucracy that still uses some of the same equipment in the subways that was introduced when his 100-year-old mom rode as a teenager.
But the most dramatic and novel idea advanced by the mayor was for free rides on the notoriously slow crosstown bus routes to speed the long lines of riders frequently waiting to board.
The M-50, which runs along 49th and 50th streets, would be the first in the experiment.
If successful, the mayor said, the freebie rides could be expanded to Jamaica, Queens, a nexus of several bus lines and the subway.
“Most of the riders who use these routes are transferring for free from another bus or subway right now,” said the mayor.
“So the time it takes for them to board the bus and swipe their MetroCard doesn’t lead to any additional revenue for the MTA — it only slows the buses.”
Some of the mayor’s other transportation proposals included providing countdown clocks in subway stations, using 5.1 miles of unused tracks from the Staten Island ferry terminal to add train service to North Shore communities and exploring a light rail system along the Brooklyn and western Queens waterfronts, starting in Red Hook.
Speaking on 34th Street off 11th Avenue, across the street from the city-funded construction of the No. 7 line extension, Bloomberg tore into the MTA like never before.
He blasted “a bungled contract” to install security cameras in the subway system and questioned why London has countdown clocks in its subways and New York has few.
Although he has lauded the transit agency in the past, noting that he rides the subway just about every day and it’s the fastest way to get around, the mayor for the first time charged: “They don’t go as quickly as they should.”
Bloomberg controls only four of the 14 votes on the MTA board, which would have to approve at least 90 percent of his proposals.
But he said he would use the mayor’s “bully pulpit” to spur action.
The MTA issued a noncommittal statement saying it always welcomes Bloomberg’s “input.”
But Comptroller Bill Thompson, the mayor’s chief Democratic challenger, blasted his “empty promises and stolen ideas,” such as expansion of reduced fare rides on the LIRR within the city, which Thompson claimed as his own.
One MTA insider said many of Bloomberg’s proposals, such as consolidation of the LIRR and Metro-North administrative functions, are already in the works.
“I don’t think there’s anything in there that’s going to cause the MTA to say, ‘This is totally unfair,’ ” predicted the insider.
By speaking out now, the insider noted, Bloomberg is able to get out ahead on the issue of mass-transit improvements and avoid a repeat of 2005 when then-Democratic challenger Freddy Ferrer blasted the mayor’s MTA appointees as “potted plants.”
Additional reporting by Reuven Fenton